"I'm no stranger to this place," says Bourdain. He expands on that in a blog post on CNN.com: " I'd visited for speaking engagements. I'd made a giddily enthusiastic episode of a previous series in Medellin and Cartagena. I'd waxed poetically and often about how well I've always been treated, how thrilling it is to see how far the country has come from its bad old days." www.cnn.com

From DP Zach Zamboni: "lying over the jungles with Air Colombia is one hell of a fun and refreshingly raw leg of travel . No safety demonstrations, no turn off your electronics, no heat. Just hold on to the webbing and don't fall out the door sort of travel. It's all analog, all mechanics, the pilots and technicians are incredible. I love that stuff, we've become so safety obsessed these days it really sucks the wind out of the sails sometimes. I'd rather be standing up in the back of pickup truck than sitting in the cab. That's pretty much Air Colombia. Highly recommend it."

More about that tweet fall-out: Bourdain writes: "Our fixers and drivers were very, very unhappy — in the uncomfortable position of being closely associated with someone (me) who was (for the next couple of days, anyway) widely thought to be a FARC sympathizer.